Month: September 2025

Lazada, the Southeast Asian e-commerce arm of Alibaba Group Holdings, has partnered with Gmarket, a South Korean online marketplace, to give shoppers across Southeast Asia access to 20 million products from South Korean sellers. Advertisement The partnership, launched on Monday, introduces a storefront for Gmarket within LazMall, Lazada’s flagship virtual shopping mall. Shoppers in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam will be able to buy a wide range of products from popular beauty and personal-care brands such as Sulwhasoo, d’Alba, Mediheal, COSRX, Skinfood and Laneige. Orders placed on the…

Deliveries of China’s first narrowbody passenger jet to the top three domestic airlines could be falling behind schedule, according to company financial reports, raising market speculation regarding potential disruptions to the model’s engine supply. Advertisement Air China and China Eastern Airlines received one C919 aircraft each in the first half of the year despite their stated goals of adding 10 apiece in 2025, according to the reports. China Southern Airlines’ reports said the carrier expects 12 of the single-aisle jets this year, but that it had “financially leased” a total…

Hong Kong has its work cut out for it to become a supply centre for green maritime fuel, as it works with partners in mainland China to build a green methanol supply chain from scratch, according to shipowner China Merchants Energy Shipping. Advertisement “Hong Kong has already realised liquefied natural gas [LNG] and biodiesel [fuelling] operations, with 130,000 tonnes of throughput so far,” said Wang Yongxin, president of the Shanghai-listed company, in a press briefing on Sunday. “But on green methanol, it needs to work hard to establish a reliable…

Chinese novelist Yan Lianke is considered a strong contender to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yan uses magical and absurd imagery to depict the realities of rural China, particularly the lives of ordinary people in the Mao Zedong era. His awards include the Franz Kafka Prize, the Lao She Literary Award and the Lu Xun Literary Prize. Yan is a professor at Renmin University of China in Beijing and a chair professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In this interview, the former soldier considers the…

As the United States begins its public consultation process for a 2026 review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Asian economies should pay close attention. The USMCA review will most likely yield one of four results: a renewal of the agreement for another 16 years until 2042, an agreement to allow the pact to expire in 2036, a more immediate termination upon six months’ notice by any party, or a partial or complete overhaul of the agreement. Advertisement Given the litany of trade complaints levelled against both Canada and Mexico by…